


Silver Bells

by dem_hips



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dem_hips/pseuds/dem_hips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Rocket grunts Ariana and Archer are called out on a mission in the snowy dead of night in Saffron City.</p>
<p>Written for a (self-imposed) Christmas Carol challenge, based on "Silver Bells" (think the Anne Murray version for the first half but then kind of slip into the Twisted Sister cover).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver Bells

**Author's Note:**

> Follows the headcanon of my "Executive" series, but can stand on its own.

In the quiet, dead of night they came, slinking like shadows among those cast by bright outlines of lights lining buildings and leafless tree branches and street signs.  Black and gray flitted over hard cement sidewalks and frozen streets, dodging between blinks of red and green and gold in their feeble attempts to chase them away.  Two by two, the shadows disappeared into bushes, behind post boxes, around corners of shops and high-rise apartment buildings.  Two by two, before the sun was even awake to begin its slow, sluggish ascent over the horizon, the shadows crept into place and waited, impatient, as the city awoke.

As one pair watched, crouched behind a low park wall, Saffron City roused around them.  The earliest shops turned on neon lights and flipped around signs to greet their bright nocturnal guardians and proclaim to the world that they were alive and ready to be met.  Vaguely, strains of music began drifting through the air still thick with pre-dawn darkness, slipping along through the smallest of cracks to find ears to hear them.  Before one pair of amber eyes and one pair of blue, crowds of people and Pokemon seemed to awaken as if from a dream.  One by one at first, and then more and more, busy people and their kept creatures passed them, slow and stiff in the morning cold.  Their reflexes were slowed, noted the blue eyes in their infinite calculations.  Slow enough, noted the amber, to perhaps forget to run after, to take note of distinguishing features before it was too late.  But the owner of the blue eyes slapped a hand over his partner’s wrist, somehow without having moved at all, even while keeping his eyes darting among the early morning bustle.  She knew what he meant, without him even having to say it out loud: they were here on orders, they had a mission to accomplish, and they were to wait for the signal.  In return, she rolled those amber eyes at him and stuck out her tongue, at which he just huffed a silent and long-suffering but visible breath and hunkered down with his ear pressed to the radio.  From the sky, a few flurries fell to drift playfully in the air around them, like Spearow flocking to grain.  Archer reached up to shoo some away from his nose, as if they were themselves giant glowing signs pointing out his and Ariana’s hideout.

As the density of the figures walking along sidewalks in ever-growing clusters increased, so too did the frequency of the snowflakes and the notes dancing amongst them: pianos and chimes and voices and bells—oh, such sweet bells!—each partnering with a flake to escort them down to land on earth.

Faintly, so faintly no normal human nor most Pokemon would have been able to hear it, Ariana’s stomach growled.  The faint smell of fresh bread and pastries had reached her nose, mingling with the scents of cinnamon and roasting nuts, reminding her that she and Archer and the rest of the grunts had been pulled from their beds without warning and without breakfast to stand ready for this mission.

“Quiet!” Archer hissed, tucking his spindly body into a smaller, pricklier ball. “We must not move before we get the signal!”

“How do they expect us to work without breakfast?” Ariana groaned under her breath, but Archer sent another irritated “Shh!” her way, and she settled for glaring at him as vehemently as her words would have been.  She brushed a fine layer of snow from the top of her hat and tucked herself down over her knees, for despite the boots, the standard issue grunt uniform was obviously not intended for work out in the field if said field involved temperatures below freezing.

What were they even doing out here so early, so close to wintry festivities?  Did they plan on attempting to take advantage of the people’s good cheer to swindle them with sticky lies and equally sticky-fingered hands?  And what were they waiting for?  A crowd?  An incident?  A signal?

_Any minute now_ , Ariana thought irritably, rubbing at her eyes.  Any minute now, before the crowds became more alert, before the Jennies had had their morning coffee and donut, before the snow settled in such a comprehensive blanket that they stuck out, black against white, no matter where they hid.  Any minute now they could do whatever it was that they came to do and then get back to HQ and warm up and have a proper breakfast.

But they waited, longer and longer, and still Archer’s radio remained silent in his hands.  Despite the speakers set outside buildings that amplified and pushed the music out into the flake-filled air, the soft crooning was soon driven out by the chatter and merriness of the crowds as they overtook sidewalks, Poochyenna on leashes, Pidgey in the air just above, Rattata at stupid, proud trainers’ feet.  They moved in currents Ariana could not hope to follow, and as they drifted into shop doors and out others, the bulk of the crowd grew with packages and bags and buns wrapped in wax paper and sweet potatoes, roasted and eaten with dangerous impatience out here on these very streets.

The scene was not unfamiliar to her, though this was possibly, she mused, the closest she’d ever seen it.  In Goldenrod, the music had been a bit softer, the crowds a little slower, the smells the smallest bit different, but from what she could remember, it was all the same.  Back then, just one year ago, she realized with a start, she had watched all this from behind a filthy, cracked window that had been painted shut.  Alone, from the top floor of an abandoned high-rise on the western side of the city, she’d peered out over the streets, watching the muted celebrations: people grinning in silent laughs and jokes, carriages speeding by with empty sleigh bells, children caroling before doors with open mouths and no voices.  She could have stuck closer to the small fire she had made in a battered pot in the center of the floor, but instead she chose to shiver and peer out at the happiness below that she couldn’t hear.  Not that she gave a shit about that sort of thing—why should she?  But the freshly-baked cakes and just-roasted potatoes looked so good and the scarves and fireplaces and mittens seemed so warm.  It was torturous watching them, but she could not tear her eyes away.

Now she could hear everything, drifting and dancing in the streets and up in the air above her and Archer’s silence.  Now that the laughter and the music and the sleighs and the voices all mingled into something that should have been catastrophically cacophonous, Ariana found she wished she could open her ears a bit wider to take it all in.  And since she couldn’t do that, she felt her teeth clench in that familiar way to keep her from begging—whom? Someone, everyone—to allow her to join in.  This was not hers.  It never had been.

She glanced aside to Archer, whose eyes were darting vigilantly amongst the crowd beyond their wall even as he pressed his ear against the speaker in his hand, listening for signs of life.  He claimed disinterest in the whole holiday affair, as usual, but Ariana knew better; she’d wriggled herself into the mailroom last week and she knew the sum he sent home this week was twice as much as usual.  Stupid kid had a ticket from birth into this holiday nonsense and he was squandering it.  Just a few extra PD sent home and then he figured he could curl up and wait for a signal that could come in five minutes or five hours or never and ignore all that surrounded him.

What was it about this stupid season that turned her back into the bitter orphan she’d thought she’d grown out of?  Was it the sight of feasts laid out on tables through windows, or was it the smiles of families that came together, without fail, year after year, to hold and love each other?  Or was it merely envy, not a want of all these things but from watching others have what she did not?

That had to be it, Ariana decided, tilting her head up carefully.  In the open field of the park not ten yards behind their wall, a cluster of children had begun erecting snowmen and clearing angel-shaped patches in the snow.  Regarded with her cold eyes, it all seemed downright silly.  But it was their joy, and now, any moment, the radio in Archer’s hand would signal them and the other grunts to their task, and that joy would be ruined.  She found herself gravitating towards the device in Archer’s hand, listening as intently as he.

Not too distantly, the special holiday bells erected at the center of town clanged twelve times, and the rest of the city seemed to hold its breath.  Even Archer glanced up along with an entire crowd’s worth of heads, as the bells seemed to summon thicker, heavier snow that left their hats a pure white, like an invitation to leave behind this life of black-clad crime.

The radio crackled as the last chime faded into the wall of white, and Archer started and pressed it back to his ear.  Ariana leaned in, her boots crunching into the fresh snow.

“Attention: this is your team leader.  Attention,” crackled the voice over the radio. “The mission has been cancelled.  All grunts return to HQ.  Repeat: return to HQ.  Do not be seen.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ariana hissed.  She made a move to snatch the stupid thing from her partner’s hand, but he held the radio at arm’s length in the other direction.

“Don’t!  You heard the leader.”  He tucked the radio onto his belt with an air of authority that made Ariana sorely want to punch his face in—again—and rose carefully from behind the wall.  “Time to go—whoa!”

He landed, hard, on his ass, in a powdery pile of snow, and relieved his eyes of their wince with a glare.  “What the hell are you doing?!”

“They dragged us out here at the buttcrack of dawn to stand around in the cold for hours, without eating, only to turn in without having done anything?”

“Yes!”

“ _Bullshit_!”

Ariana got to her own feet, Archer on her heels, and dusted off her knees.  “We’re not going back to HQ.  Not yet.”

Archer’s face screwed up in the usual frustration his partner always instilled in him, sooner or later.  With the fingers of his right hand he pinched the ever-deepening wrinkles between his eyes as if to stave off an oncoming headache.  “Really.  And what do you intend to do instead?”

Ariana’s eyes glittered like the lights hanging from branches and light posts above them.  “Have a little fun.”

“Fun?!  We’re not supposed to be seen!  _Look_ at us!”

Ariana did.  Their hats were covered with a healthy layer of white, but the red “R” emblems emblazoned on their chests could hardly be missed.  She pursed her lips tightly and stared at Archer’s uniform.

“See what I mean?  Now come on.  They’ll be looking for us if we don’t hurry up and—”

Something hard thumped him in the chest.  With his mouth still hanging open for the formation of another word, Archer looked down at himself.  A snowball had struck him dead on and hundreds—thousands, maybe—of tiny little snowflakes clung tenaciously to the fabric of his uniform, blocking out most of the red.

“It’s heavy enough,” Ariana said, dipping her voice into a nasally, analytical impression of his own. “I suspect you could manage to not be recognized if I continued to pelt you with snowballs.”

The wrinkles in Archer’s face grew more pronounced as his eyes narrowed ever smaller.  “This,” he proclaimed, “is ridiculous.  I’m going back.”  But he left the snow where it was.

Ariana’s grin grew wider.  “Oh, bad form, Arch.  You wouldn’t leave your partner.  What if I got caught?”

“I would and I will,” Archer insisted, “and if you get caught that’s your own damn fault and your own damn problem.”  He had his clenched fists on his hips, and his chest attempted to puff out with authority, though Ariana thought he only managed to look like a Pidgey trying to appear larger than it was.

“Fine,” she said calmly. “Go ahead and leave me here.”  And then, very conspicuously, she imitated his stance as well.

The longer he stared at her, incensed and with growing impatience, the more amusement leaked into her expression.  She didn’t so much as flinch when he bent over, scooped up a ball’s worth of snow, and pelted at the bright red target on her chest, but she was impressed that he managed to hit his mark.

“There,” said Archer with a satisfied breath, “now you won’t…be…seen…”

“Game on, Arch.”  She grinned, in response to the fear overwhelming his face, and when she bent over to grab another handful of snow, he took off into the park.  With his Pokeballs and his radio bouncing at his waist, he disappeared into the wall of falling snow.  She took off after him.

Around her, the fight rose up like a wave; at first, it was only her hunting her partner, grinning like a Haunter, and him fleeing like a Butterfree in her path.  But then she threw, and missed, and a responding projectile answered from an unknown assailant, and then she was caught in the middle of a blind battle, balls sailing through the snow thick as fog.  Every once in a while she glimpsed a limb or a quarter of a face and knew it was her partner, that he was still around, and whether this was because he, deep down, wanted a break or simply because he could not find his way out of this white and gray maze dappled with blinking, colored lights, she didn’t know—or care.

Shouts and laughter and music became the soundtrack for the most harrowing battle Saffron City had ever seen.  While time rushed past with grins and triumph, Ariana launched herself into the fray, throwing, dodging, being knocked back by hard-packed snowballs.  For one whole hour, she took the season, reveled at it resting cold and bright in her hands, and then propelled it into the dizzying mist of snow, sixteen years’ worth of missed opportunities fueling her every move.

But then breaths died out, the snow lightened, and kids and adults wandered away, wandered home, to the promise of warm blankets and bright fireplaces and mugs full of hot cocoa lovingly made by someone’s hands.  Ariana, with her lips clenched tightly and her eyes lingering on the trampled snow, whispered a silent, final goodbye to it all, and together, she and Archer slipped out of the city to the toll of a single bell.


End file.
